


Like We Had a Good Time (Not That I Need Proof)

by Dienda



Category: True Detective
Genre: Artistic License: Police Procedure, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mild Gore, mentions of child abuse, mentions of drug use, mentions of sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dienda/pseuds/Dienda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They barely make it a few steps inside the bullpen, everyone swarms around them beaming and clapping, all of them eager to pat their backs and hear a bit of the story.</p>
<p>Rust and Marty in the aftermath of the Ledoux case</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like We Had a Good Time (Not That I Need Proof)

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to the wonderful [blackeyedblonde](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde) for her constant support and for beta-reading this story. You're the absolute best, Hannah.

  

 

“Hey,” Marty catches up to him just outside the front door, bumps their shoulders together and grabs the truck keys from Rust’s hand. “You ain’t driving.”

Rust stops in his tracks and glares at his partner. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

After they bundled the little girl into the ambulance and walked the response officers through the scene, Rust and Marty gave their preliminary statements and drove all the way back to the station to file the scene report so Quesada could look at it first thing in the morning.

“You heard me.”

Rust doesn’t move. “Give me my fucking keys, ain’t no reason I can’t drive.”

Marty lets out a huff of laughter and strides back until they’re standing less than two feet apart. “Are you shitting me?” he whispers, like someone could overhear them ―there’s no one around beside the bleary-eyed deputy at the front desk, on the other side of the door. “Want me to make a list, starting with whatever fucking drugs you did last night?”

Rust tightens his jaw and considers what it would take to goad the other man into a fight; he can still feel the last remnants of Crash in the back of his brain, in the curves of his knuckles if he balls his hands into fists. He wonders what would happen if he shoved Marty, hard, right here in the parking lot. If he threw a punch.

Before he can bring himself to act, Marty turns away with an exasperated sigh.

“I ain’t asking, Rust.”

 

They drive in sullen silence; they should probably start talking about what happened, figure the finer details of their story before this shit starts snowballing out of their hands but the words remain scorched and jumbled in their throats. Rust stares at Marty through the reflections on the windows and the windshield, a pair of ghostly hands gripping the wheel, a bone-tired profile scowling at the road. The familiarity of this ―the smell of stale cigarette smoke, the feel of the seat against his back, the exact tone of their silence― allows the knot in the back of Rust’s head to finally loosen and he starts to really plummet from the combined high of the drugs and the adrenaline. He slumps against the window, his limbs suddenly leaden, and the cool of the glass against his forehead spreading a tendril of chill down his spine.

By the time they park outside his place Rust can barely keep his eyes open. Marty kills the engine and sags with a long sigh.

“Listen, Ru―” his voice wavers and breaks in a sharp huff of breath. “Goddammit.”

Rust doesn’t turn to see Marty get out of the car, but the driver’s door slamming shut jostles his head and sparks a wave of pain behind his eyes.

“C’mon,” Marty pulls him out of the car and practically carries him to the door, one arm around his waist, Rust’s forehead lolling against his jaw. “Fuckin hell, Rust, you’re burning up.”

“’m fine, just need to―need to sweat the rest of this shit off.” He stays propped against the wall, slowly sliding down, as Marty fumbles with the lock and drags him inside.

“Maybe we should make a trip to the hospital. What d’you take?”

He shakes his head as they stumble down the hall. _Just need some sleep_ he intends to say but, to his own ears, the words sound distorted, like marbles rubbing together. Marty lowers him onto the mattress and kneels beside him. Rust doesn’t feel anything after that.

-

 

He shifts to lie on his side and the movement sends a sharp jolt of pain across his flank. He bends his knees and stretches his arms, each movement stiff and painful. He opens his eyes, blinks a few times to keep them half-way open and peers at the early morning light. Rust’s in bed, covers up to his chest, in nothing but his underwear and one sock; he’s still caked in two days’ worth of dry sweat, can feel it in the tightness of his skin and the dark stains left on his white sheets.

Marty is sleeping next to him, half-slumped against the wall, a folded towel clutched in one hand. He’s still wearing his goddamned Pink Floyd t-shirt.

It starts coming back to the front of his mind then, the whole fucking spectacle. Crash and the Iron Crusaders. The bust at the projects. Ledoux. The kids. The images have the plasticky, brittle feeling of celluloid, bright colors melted at the edges, his own point of view erratic and detached.

His eyes close again and he reaches out blindly to tug on Marty’s arm until the other man grumbles and shifts down so they’re lying side by side.

“You alright?” Marty asks in a gruff whisper. The palm of his hand presses sloppy against Rust’s forehead and moves to the side of his face before retreating.

Rust grunts but doesn’t open his eyes.

“I was so fucking worried, you son of a bitch.”

They both slide back into a heavy sleep.

 

It feels like only a few minutes but the next time Rust opens his eyes the room is bleached with the midday sun and he’s alone in bed. The gurgling of the coffee maker draws his eyes to the kitchen.

“Morning, asshole. Thought I was gonna have to kiss you awake.” Marty’s sitting on his one stool, cup in hand, waiting for the coffee to be done brewing.

“Told you I was gonna be fine.” Rust sits up slowly, his joints screaming in pain even louder than before; he vaguely recalls taking a bat in the back. He grabs his watch off the floor and squints at it. It’s way past noon. “Thought we were gonna brief Quesada first thing in the morning.”

Marty shakes his head. “I called in. We just closed a fucking ritual murder case and rescued a little girl, Rust. He’s not gonna give us shit for showing up late to the office.”

Rust gets up and drags his feet to the kitchen. The coffee has stopped bubbling, Marty pours the cup and hands it to him before retrieving another mug from the rack.

“Take a shower, man, you look like you crawled out of the fucking grave.” He’s already showered, undershirt and dress pants on, black socks against the white tiles.

“Something like that,” Rust grunts around a mouthful of too-hot coffee and pads to the bathroom.

 

He steps under the spray and gasps at the cold water, feels immediately more alert. His whole body spasms and shivers before he can finally breathe. He washes the dirt off his hair, scrubs himself until his skin feels raw.

The face in the mirror’s still Crash, blood-shot eyes and rough stubble. Rust lathers his jaw with soap and shaves without looking at his reflection. When he’s done he takes the little bottle of eye drops from the mirror cabinet and dry-swallows a handful of Tylenols, nothing but his daily routine for looking like a human being.

When he comes back out, half dressed, Marty’s at the stove and the smell of food makes Rust’s mouth water, reminding him he hasn’t eaten in at least two days.

“Eggs,” he deadpans when he comes close enough to peer into the skillet. Last time he checked, his bottle of Tabasco and that half empty bag of confectioner’s sugar were the only edible things in his kitchen.

“I went ‘round squeezing hens while you were gone. Eat.” Marty turns the stove off and produces a fucking carton of orange juice out of the fridge.

The eggs have no salt but they wolf them down like starving men, in between gulps of juice and coffee.

“We just stick to the preliminary statements,” Rust says when they’re done eating and the silence’s starting to stretch thin. They didn’t get to talk last night and if they don’t get their shit together the truth’s gonna start peeking through the holes in their story. “The fewer lies we tell the better.”

Marty nods, eyes fixed on the wall. He takes a deep breath and dumps their plates in the sink. “I think the part that needs a more solid explanation is how we got to Ledoux’s in the first place.”

“I got in touch with my old handler before leaving for Alaska, asked about the Iron Crusaders. He told me their whereabouts these days and assured me my cover hadn’t been blown. That much is true.” Rust goes back to the mattress to get the cigarettes he keeps on top of a stack of books, lights one. “So I made a few more calls, got told Ginger was gonna meet with his supplier in a few days so I got back in time for that. My narco files are sealed so it’s not like they can call my contact and check if we’re telling the truth.”

“Fuck, Ginger.” Marty rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You fucking sure he ain’t gonna snitch on us? You just left him on the side of the road? Rust, did you―”

“He ain’t gonna talk about it, man; he’s got too much to lose, and not just with the cops. Miles’ probably gonna skin him alive, if he even managed to crawl out of that ditch. He doesn’t even know who we are, Marty, that we’re on this side of the state border. He’s not gonna admit he was part of that shit at the projects.”

“Yeah, about that, what the fuck was that?”

Rust takes a long drag off his cigarette and shakes his head. “That ain’t important now.”

Marty worries his lips between his teeth but lets the matter drop. “We were told when and where the meeting was taking place so we shadowed Ginger there and then just followed Dewall back to that shithole.”

“I shadowed Ginger, you waited at the location; we gotta account for riding both cars there.”

Marty scowls at the countertop and shakes his head. “Sounds too simple.”

“That’s a good thing, Marty, if we overcomplicate this shit the whole thing’s gonna come crashing down around us.”

“Alright then. Let’s go over the shootout again.”

“Alright.” Rust gestures for him to go on.

Marty knits his eyebrows but starts talking. “We got close enough to see the house, we clocked Dewall going into the container and decided to retreat and call it in.” This is the only part they’ve rehearsed some. Hell, Rust made Marty repeat it about half a dozen times while they waited for the response team. “We were about to go back when Ledoux saw us, started fucking shooting at us with the AK.”

Rust nods. “We dropped to the ground, crawled around in the underbrush trying to get cover and fire back.”

“I managed to go back a bit, went around the property, the grass was tall so Ledoux didn’t see me, and you shot a couple of rounds to cover me. Went behind the house, snuck up on Ledoux. He heard me, though, turned around just as I was gonna tell him to freeze.” Marty takes a deep breath that stutters a bit on the way out, and keeps his eyes on a coffee stain in the middle of the white formica. “Shot his fucking face off.”

Rust doesn’t let him dwell on it. “Dewall decided to make a run for it and got blown to pieces by his own fucking grenade. We cleared the premises, found the kids in the outbuilding, and their fucking drug lab in the crate. We called it in.”

“Got that little girl out,” Marty says, voice thin and blue eyes wide, like he’s expecting to be reassured that they got that right, that they ―he― did one good thing despite the rest of that mess.

“That’s right, man. Fuck that raping, kid-murdering piece of shit.” Rust doesn’t put a comforting hand on his shoulder, instead he straightens up and tugs on Marty’s arm. “C’mon, partner, Major’s waiting for us.”

 

The smiles start the moment they step inside the building, clerks, secretaries, even the random people standing in the lobby who probably have no idea what the fuck is going on. Rust’s head fills with the jarring sound of clapping echoing against the glass walls. He can almost feel Marty’s posture change as they become the center of attention: shoulders back, hips adopting that cowboy swagger that makes him seem jovial and imposing at the same time, a smirk coloring his eyes a lighter shade of blue. Rust forces himself to follow his lead and uncoil the permanent tension from his limbs as the corners of his lips curl up.

They stick together, shoulders brushing as they go up the stairs to the bullpen. Quesada meets them at the door with a wide smile and a handshake. He says he never doubted them and sounds like he half means it, like he’s forgotten he spent the last two months reaching for his fucking anti-acids every time they’d step into his office. They barely make it a few steps inside the bullpen, everyone swarms around them beaming and clapping, all of them eager to pat their backs and hear a bit of the story. One of the guys has liberated a bottle of scotch from the depths of a drawer and Rust turns down the offer but soon half-full mugs are getting passed around for a toast.

Someone got two copies of that morning’s newspaper, ‘Hero Detectives Stop Killers, Save Girl’ printed on the front page above a picture of him and Marty carrying the kids to the ambulance. Rust remembers, like a blurry dream, the weight of the dead boy in his arms, a memory superimposed on the ghost of a lighter, smaller frame; he didn’t notice any the photographers at the scene. Apparently everyone from the PTA to the Governor’s office has called to commend them on a job well done. They ride the wave of congratulations nodding and shrugging and smiling at each other; Rust tries to brush off any kind of praise thrown his way, sets the role of hero squarely on Marty’s shoulders.

 

Before the celebration can escalate into a full-blown party Quesada sends everyone back to their desks and calls Rust and Marty into his office.

“It’s so good to see this shitshow solved,” the Major declares as he plops down in his chair. “Well done.” He places three thick folders in front of them. “Read you preliminary statements, all good there. Start working on the full file. That’s the crime scene report, we still gotta wait for the M.E. and ballistics but this is a big case so everyone is giving it priority.”

Marty takes the files. “We’ll get started right away, boss.”

“The girl’s been identified, Kelly Reider from St. Landry. You gotta swing by the hospital tomorrow, see if she’s well enough for a statement.” Quesada lets out a deep sigh. “You know what, I’m sure glad those two fuckers are dead, at least that little girl won’t have to know anything about them ever again.” Rust and Marty exchange a look as they get up to leave. “Good job, you two.”

The crime scene report is little more than a list of items, from bodies to buildings, it’s the attempt to convert a too-quick moment into laconic words. This is all this case is now: reports, statements, paperwork. Once the dust has settled, Dora, Ledoux, the kids will just be reduced to a stack of files.

They don’t get much done. The day started late and the whole fucking bullpen is virtually vibrating with expectation; the rest of the guys keep rocking in their chairs and throwing them sidelong glances, barely pretending to work, whispering and chuckling to their partners like they’re school children.

Cathleen is the first to go, just as the sky’s going completely dark outside the windows. She comes over to their desks, gives Rust a half smile and pulls Marty into a hug.

“Good job, baby. You’ll tell me all about it later, alright?” she says, well aware that she’s not invited to what happens next, to the drinking and boasting that belongs exclusively to the men.

“Of course, brown sugar.” Marty winks and kisses her cheek, and Rust realizes his partner is genuinely fond of her.

The night staff starts trickling in and a couple of deputies say their reluctant goodnights before disappearing down the stairs. Twenty minutes later Quesada grabs his jacket and turns his light off.

“Don’t get them too drunk, I need them on their feet tomorrow,” he tosses over his shoulder as he exits the bullpen.

 

They burst into the cop bar closest to the station, Rust gets dragged along because he’s part of the story and, if only for one night, the other men are content enough to forget they hate him. Because Marty grabbed his arm and said _c’mon_. The place is already teeming with guys from the local precinct and they get treated to another round of applause.

The whole bar joins the CID group in a too loud toast and the bartender tells Marty and Rust their rounds are on the house. Rust accepts a bottle of Lone Star so no one will say anything and Marty downs two shots of rum before settling with a pint of beer.

“Let’s hear it, then,” says Lutz, and the rest of the men whistle and cheer.

Marty plays coy for exactly five seconds before reminding them that he can’t tell them the whole thing because they haven’t typed their affidavits yet. He takes a moment to recap how they landed on Reggie Ledoux’s name and glosses over the search for Tyrone Weems.

He talks about the Iron Crusaders and how Rust made a few calls before heading up to Alaska. Rust is oddly grateful when Marty remembers to say _his old Texas contacts_ instead of _his old narco contacts_ , the files being sealed means the higher ups and Marty are the only ones who really know about his undercover years.

Everyone’s waiting for the shootout and Marty doesn’t disappoint. He spins something out of an action movie: avoiding setting off any of the traps as they crept into Ledoux’s compound, hearing the bullets fly about their heads as they scrambled for cover. Thinking, for a minute, that they wouldn’t make it out alive. Rust wonders how he could be so fucking pathetic at hiding the affair with the stenographer when he can lie like this, when he can weave a tale out of nothing but nonchalance and the spark in his eyes; Marty’s natural charm and bullshit building on the bare bones of their cover story.

They’re both sitting at the bar, the counter digging into their spines, most of CID and half of the local precinct standing around them, eyes bright with awe and envy. Just like Marty ―Marty before Ledoux, before Rust― they’ve never fired their guns. They’ve never killed another man. They still believe it’s something to brag about, an exciting deed.

Marty falters when he gets to it.

“I raised my gun to sh―” he stops midword, arms still raised in a mimicry of his shooting stance.

Rust doesn’t miss a beat, he drapes an arm around the other man’s shoulders, shakes him lightly and grins at the men. “My partner here put that fucker down in one shot.” They cheer. He shrugs. “Then the cousin did the world a favor and blew himself up trying to get away.”

The guys cackle and groan in a single sound and that brings Marty back, he chuckles and nods his head. “I bet Forensics are still peeling bits of that asshole off the tree branches.”

Everyone’s laughing and sloshing beer on the floor, boasting about what they would have done in their place, how they would have shot the bad guys without blinking.

Marty laughs along and downs another three shots of rum.

 

It’s raining on the drive home. Marty is slumped in the passenger seat, decidedly drunk, arms around himself. Rust is smoking, window open a couple of inches, raindrops hitting the side of his face from time to time; he’s just goddamned glad they’re out of the bar, too crowded and too loud, it felt like the whole world smelled of stale beer. It’s almost one in the morning.

They stop at a red light. This part of town is still busy, even in the rain. The headlights of the cars crossing the intersection flicker and fade in Marty’s eyes.

“They all wish it had been them,” he says, looking at Rust’s hands on the wheel.

Rust doesn’t answer. He doesn’t point out that, just a few days ago, Marty had wished that too.

When they get to Rust’s place Marty kicks off his shoes, strips down to his underwear and crawls onto the mattress. Rust thinks about dragging him up and telling him to fuck off upstairs but he just dry-swallows three Quaaludes and stares at the notes and photocopies taped to his wall. The first report from the cane field, photos of Dora’s crown, of her blue spiral traced on Rianne Olivier’s back.

He starts plucking them down, one by one, like petals. First the pictures of Rianne, guess that’s another case they just solved, maybe it’ll make a difference to her grandfather. He takes Ledoux’s file next, his blurry mugshot and laundry list of crimes, wonders if he’d have told them the whole truth, the full scope of it, if rich men in the woods was just a bunch of big words to make Charlie Lange shit his pants.

When his movements get too slow and too clumsy Rust undresses and gets under the covers, next to Marty. He’s feeling his body sinking into sleep when a hand grabs his arm and Marty’s eyes blink open.

“Rust.” His gaze is unfocused and dark with alcohol. “What the hell happened at the projects? How d’you get roped into that? What did they―you should’ve called me sooner.”

“You showed up exactly when I needed you.” Rust whispers as he peels Marty’s hand off.

“Did they―”

“Don’t worry, Marty. I’ve done worse things. I’ve had far worse things done to me.”

He dreams of a dingy room, five years ago, where he pulled the trigger of his gun until his ears were deaf and his finger felt nothing but the useless click of and empty clip. Of his own co-workers tackling him to the floor and pushing his face against the filthy carpet while the junkie’s brain leaked black out of his skull. He doesn’t see the tiny, bloated body, long cold, and that’s enough to not call the dream a nightmare.

-

 

They go out to the M.E.’s office first thing in the morning. DiCillo rolls the boy out of the freezer, uncovers him. The kid looks even smaller on the steel table, nothing but a thin bag of bones; Rust feels, again, the ghost of weight on his arms.

“He’d been dead about a day when you brought him out. Dehydration,” the M.E. declares. “But he was already starving, probably hadn’t been fed in about a week, there was nothing in his stomach.”

“A day?” Marty’s face pinches. “Jesus, we could―”

“Was he drugged?” Rust interrupts him. They don’t need to get stuck in useless what-ifs right now.

“Yeah, lysergic acid and methadone.”

“Like Dora Lange.”

“He’s also got ligature marks on his neck, wrists and ankles, shackles, half-inch rope too, old and new marks. Evidence of sexual assault.” DeCillo points at the small, washed body with two gloved fingers as he recites the injuries. “Shallow cuts on the arms, thighs, chest and back; he’d been there long enough for some of the wounds to be completely healed, the ones that didn’t become infected. Two cracked ribs on the left side, one on the right. He was hit with a blunt object, possibly a steel pipe. Right hand’s broken too, most likely defensive. Ring finger proximal, distal and intermediate, little finger proximal and metacarpal; they weren’t healing straight.”

He’d tried to fight back, at least at first. Before they broke his ribs. Before they cut him and bruised him just to watch him cry.

“Any prints?” asks Rust.

“Yes. Most of them were too smudged to be useful, got two clear ones on his neck, we’re waiting on a match for Reginald Ledoux, thumb and index. Got some smaller ones, from the girl that was with him.”

It’s a good thing the M.E. showed them the boy first. When DeCillo uncovers Ledoux Marty is too angry to have any inconvenient fits of guilt. He glares at the corpse, his jaw clenched, and doesn’t flinch when his eyes land on the black, brownish pulp that used to be Reggie Ledoux’s face.

“At that close range the bullet tore through the right side of the face: maxilla, zygomatic, sphenoid. Blew most of the frontal lobe.”

“Good,” Marty mutters.

DeCillo shrugs. “Died almost instantly. Traces of diethylamine and phosphoric chloride.”

“From making the LSD.”

“Yes. No other wounds, only old scars on this one. Some of them look like they were made on purpose, they look like symbols.” He hands Rust the file, there’s a stack of photos in a binder clip; the one on top shows the back of Ledoux’ neck, a twirling spiral drawn in puckered scar tissue. “Twenty-four tattoos, most of them swastikas and neo-Nazi stuff. The others, like I told y’all, gotta ask an anthropologist.”

In the end, Ledoux’s corpse is just that, decaying meat that offers them no real answers beyond the basic confirmation that he was a murderous piece of shit. He was no king, no occult worshipper, just an Aryan Nation asshole who enjoyed hurting people and spouting esoteric bullshit while high on his own drugs.

 

“Want me to drive, Marty?” Rust asks around the cigarette he’s lighting. They’re back in the car but Marty’s just sitting there with his hands on the wheel, the engine idling.

“That little boy was in a lot of pain for a very long time.” Rust knows what’s next so he just takes a long drag of smoke and looks at his partner. “If we’d worked faster, gotten there sooner―”

“No,” Rust shakes his head. “That’s fucking bullshit, Marty. You know it. No amount of wishful thinking is gonna make that boy any less dead. If we’d gone to Quesada with the information about the Crusaders odds are those kids would still be chained in that fucking crate, buried behind that hellhole of a house. So fuck that, we’re stuck with the choices we made and how things went down.”

“Fuck, you’re―” Marty doesn’t finish the sentence, just glares at him ―eyes too blue and knuckles white around the wheel― before turning away and finally peeling out of the parking lot.

They go back to the station and, as soon as they walk through the door, Cathleen comes around her desk and hands Marty a pink slip of paper.

“Hey baby, hospital called. Y’all can go see Kelly Reider this afternoon.”

Marty lets out a long sigh and takes the paper with a mumbled ‘thanks’.

They brief Quesada on the M.E. report and sit at their desks pushing paper around. Lunch hour comes and goes, the bullpen lulling into the silence of the AC and the muffled ringing of the phone downstairs. Rust and Marty stay where they are, fidgeting and typing and not saying a single word.

On the way to the hospital Rust has the callous thought that little Kelly is the only one who could call them on their lie. It ain’t likely that she remembers anything of that moment, the state she was in, but if it comes to that the word of two hero cops will weigh more than the testimony of a dehydrated, tortured girl. The idea puts a drop of something bitter on Rust’s tongue.

Kelly is in the observation ward next to the ER; before they can see her, the doctor leads them into her office and hands them a file that reads like the one they got at the morgue: dehydrated, traces of LSD, shallow cuts and bruises, rape kit confirmed evidence of sexual assault, nurse had to shear her hair off to clean all the lacerations on her skull.

“I’m gonna let you go in but it won’t do any good,” the doctor tells them with an apologetic smile. “She’s catatonic, has been like that since the EMTs brought her in.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Kelly’s in a state of stupor, unresponsive. She moves when we move her, she eats if we hand-feed her, but that’s about it. Doesn’t react to external stimuli, doesn’t speak, we don’t even know how much pain she’s in.”

“What?” Marty leans in closer to the desk. “But she’s gonna get better, right?”

“We don’t know.” The doctor can’t keep the defeat out of her voice. “We’re gonna keep her in observation for a few days, if she doesn’t improve by then we’ll transfer her to a psychiatric ward.”

Rust’s skin breaks out in goosebumps. “Just like that?”

“She’ll get better treatment at a specialized facility. They can administer electroconvulsive therapy, that’s the procedure with the best results in these cases.”

“Electroconvuls― Jesus.” Marty’s face is red and pinched when he meets Rust’s eyes.

“There’s not much else we can do.” The doctor straightens up, a strand of auburn hair falling along her temple. “Like I said, detectives, you can see her but I don’t think she’s gonna be able to give you a statement any time soon.”

 

A nurse props Kelly up into a sitting position; the girl moves without resistance, remains upright on her own but her green eyes just slide past them. Rust knows, just looking at her, that she’s gone for good. Whoever Kelly Reider used to be got left behind in that crate, she’s no more alive than the boy is, probably doesn’t even know she’s out of that place.

“Kelly,” Rust calls softly. He’s sure they’re not gonna get a response but he still tries. He sits in the chair by her bed and his stomach twists for a second because this is so, so familiar. A moment later he feels Marty stand behind him, the metal of his badge scraping against the back of the chair. “I’m detec― I’m Rustin, this is Martin. We’re the ones who found you, who brought you home. Do you remember us?”

She gives them a sluggish blink; her eyes move in their direction but she looks through them, focused on something inside her head.

“Kelly.” He doesn’t reach his hand out, the sole idea of touching her makes his fingers throb.

They try asking her if she remembers when she was taken, where, if there were more than two men, but she doesn’t move beyond the gentle up and down of her breathing and the slow dip of her eyelids.

“So she’s just gonna get carted off to a sanatorium and given fucking electroshocks to see if it snaps her out of it?” Marty sighs as soon as they’re back in the car; his scowl carves grooves in his forehead and rims his eyes red.

Rust runs his thumb along the edge of Kelly’s folder. “Y’know, Marty, maybe that little boy is better off.” His throat tightens painfully after he’s said the words. He turns his face away and blinks too fast at the dark sedan parked next to them.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Rust,” Marty huffs out, rubbing too hard at his owns eyes, but doesn’t contradict him.

They stay silent after that, don’t look at each other. Rust knows this affects them both, in their different ways. Marty because this is something that could happen to his children, because every little girl is his little girls. Rust because it isn’t. Because he doesn’t have a daughter anymore and it is the biggest fucking relief to know that Sophia can never be hurt like this, that she’s safe from all the evil in this fucking world. The guilt at that relief makes him want to crawl all the way to her still-new headstone and beg her forgiveness through the ground.

 

They’d agreed to go over their statements once more but when they get back to the house that evening Marty just tosses his jacket on the back of one of the lawn chairs and goes straight for the bottle of Jameson on the kitchen counter ―there’s an increasing row of empty bottles next to the sink― and downs about half of it in two long gulps before setting it down with a hiss.

“G’night,” he mutters and goes upstairs without another word.

Rust doesn’t sleep. He takes a shower to wash the hospital smell out of his nostrils and settles down on one of the chairs to go over the files once more. He reads every report, looks at every photograph until the images feel like they’re etched on the inside of his eyelids.

Marty doesn’t sleep either, Rust can hear him moving upstairs: the squeaking of the goddamned air mattress as he lies down and tosses and turns, the soft thuds of his bare feet on the floor when he can’t stand lying down anymore, the bathroom faucet, a window opening. Sounds that are barely there, like Rust’s insomnia is physically haunting the place.

The night trickles by but Marty doesn’t come down and Rust never ventures upstairs.

-

 

The shooting board won’t start ‘til nine but they get to the station with a good twenty minutes to spare. Rust parks the car in Marty’s usual spot and kills the engine.

“Wanna go over it again?” he asks.

Marty’s been practically pulsating with anxiety since they left the house, plus the added jitters of too much coffee and not enough sleep. “We’ve gone over it a hundred fucking times.”

They haven’t. Haven’t really rehashed it properly since that first morning, and the only time they’ve said it out loud was to a bar full of drunken cops. The fact that they’ve memorized their tale by force of thinking about pretty much nothing else doesn’t mean they’ve got this in the fucking bag.

“We gotta get it right, Marty.” Rust gets his smokes from his shirt pocket, takes one out and lets it hang between his lips. “Gotta sound shaken. But no too much or they’ll order a psych eval.”

He lights the cigarette with one long drag and hands it to Marty. He fishes another one from the pack.

Marty burns almost half of it in a single lungful, lets the smoke puff out of his nostrils. “You said you were in a shootout with those cartel thugs, d’you get a round of twenty questions? A psych eval? A fucking medal?”

“Not exactly.” The first time he shot someone he got something more like a court-martial and a one way ticket to four years of hell. Port Houston just got him three slugs in his side and one hundred and twenty six tepid daybreaks on a stiff cot at North Shore.

They smoke in silence for a few moments.

“We’re gonna be fine,” Marty says with a resolute nod. “We already told it once and it went well.”

Rust shakes his head. “That’s what I’m talking about, Marty. This ain’t Steve and Bobby and the rest of your cronies creaming their pants as you tell them you took the safety off your gun. This is a bunch of bored pencil-pushers that have sat behind a desk for so long they’ve forgotten what it is to be cops. Don’t tell it like you did at the bar.” He scoffs. “Just try to sound like you’re genuinely ashamed.”

The look Marty gives him tastes like congealed blood in the back of this throat.

 

They call Rust first. The board’s in the conference room on the top floor of the station. He sits at one end of the table, a microphone in front of him. There’s a man and a woman from the Governor’s office and both the Police Commissioner and the Deputy Chief, along with some other officers; he wonders if any of them are from Internal Affairs. The only familiar ―if unwelcomed― face is Commander Speece.

Rust is instructed to state his full name and rank. After that they ask him the generals of the case and how his partner and he ended up at Ledoux’s compound. When they finally ask him to retell what went down at the location Rust repeats their story in a low, measured voice, without looking anyone in the eye.

“I can say that I walked away from the experience with a greater respect for the sanctity of human life,” he says, because everyone is fucking ecstatic that both Reggie and Dewall finished the day in a body bag but it’s bad form to say it out loud. He has to play at being humble and they all have to play at being sorry the whole thing went down.

They summon Marty in right away, Rust claps his side as they cross each other in the hall. He sits on one of the benches outside the closed doors; he’s supposed to go straight to the bullpen but he’s gonna stick around, even if he feels almost like a kid waiting for his buddy outside the principal’s office.

Rust can hear the voices on the other side of the door, but the sound is muffled. He recognizes his partner’s voice every time he speaks but can’t make out the words. He doesn’t hear when Marty looks down at his own hands and says, almost ruefully _, I think I just did what was necessary to protect my partner. And myself._

 

Marty emerges over an hour later, silent and ashen-faced; Rust grabs him by the arm and hauls him toward the stairs.

“How’d it go?” he whispers, crowding the other man in the deserted landing.

Marty sags against the handrail and lets out a breathless chuckle. “Commissioner recognized the toughness of my decision and applauded the bravery displayed by me and Detective Cohle.”

Rust feels the knot in his stomach uncoil as his lips curl up. He snorts. “Said pretty much the same thing to me.”

“It went well, Rust.”

“Fuck yeah, Marty. _Fucking yes_.” There’s some kind of elation in having been able to sell their lie all the way through. He throws an arm around Marty’s shoulders. “C’mon, partner. I’m gonna buy you a beer.”

Marty tries to show some halfhearted reluctance but he’s still smiling. “We’re supposed to go back―”

“Paperwork’s gonna be there when we come back. It’s lunchtime already. C’mon.”

 

Marty drives them to a place that’s somewhere between a diner and a bar, odd contrast of wood and Formica; a handful of tables and narrow booths lining the windows, a steel door that leads to what looks like a tiny, clean kitchen. It’s half full at best, there’s an old man at the bar hunched over a glass of whiskey, a group of guys in suits eating in a corner table, and a couple in their twenties staring at each other like neither wants to acknowledge this will be their last drink together.

At least there isn’t a single cop in sight and no one looks at them twice.

Rust and Marty settle in one of the booths, knees knocking together under the table whenever they shift their legs. Marty orders two Lone Stars and a couple of cheeseburgers. They eat like starving men, wolfing down the burgers and gulping beer like they’ve just remembered what it is to have a proper meal; they’ve spent the last few days too worried about the fucking blade hanging over their heads to care much about physical needs.

“What’d you make of it?” asks Marty after downing the last of his second beer. His good humor has visibly faded.

Rust swallows a mouthful of fries and pushes his plate away. “Of what?”

Marty’s lips are twisted into a scowl. “I don’t know. It all feels too easy.”

Rust can think of a dozen ways the shit can still hit the fan but he shakes his head. “That’s your fucking conscience, brother. You expectin’ to get caught?”

Marty leans in, forearms braced on the edge of the table. “I was expecting to get asked more questions. I―they ask you about DeCillo’s report or the crime scene record?”

Rust looks out the window, the mid-morning traffic flashes by like the street outside is another universe. “They only asked about our statement at the scene.”

“What was the fucking point of rushing all those preliminary reports if they weren’t gonna use ‘em for the board?”

Rust scoffs. “I don’t know, Marty. Good old politics? With the press and the task force and the fucking Tuttle cousins breathing down their neck the department’s in such a hurry to see this shit go away that they don’t care much what actually went down.”

Marty sags against the seat. “ _I_ can’t wait to see this shit go away.”

“There you go, they wanna just close the case but still gotta make a show of following procedure. It’s lazy and a load of fucking bullshit but pretty convenient for us too.” Rust balls up his napkin and lets out a sigh. “Quesada told you when he’s letting us catch again?”

“Wants us to see this through first.” Marty nods, clears his throat before shrugging. “I can ask if he’ll let us assist around with ongoing cases.” He sends the other man a halfhearted glare. “If you can keep from slapping people around, that is.”

Rust glowers right back. “I didn’t take this job to make friends, Marty.”

“I can tell, Rust, but a fucking ounce of civility is definitely required.”

He shrugs one shoulder, looks out the window again. “It was just a tactical move, man, Steve’s gonna keep his distance now.”

“Yeah, no shit, they all will.” Marty shakes his head and chuckles. “Holy shit, Rust. Back then I thought I was gonna have to peel Geraci off your scrawny ass, but now―” he glances down at the table, a small trace of a smile still on his lips. “Think I better keep you in my corner.”

Rust grunts and shakes his head. “No point in fighting you, man.”

Marty looks at him for a long, long moment, worrying his lip between his teeth, then sits up straight and taps Rust’s ankle with the side of his shoe. “I called home this morning, while you were, uhm―” he throws a glance around at the other tables. “While you were in the shower.”

Rust still doesn’t wanna hear even one fucking word about Marty’s marital problems but he’s well aware his partner needs a certain amount of emotional petting before they can get back to talking strictly about work. “And?”

“Maggie didn’t immediately hang up on me.” Marty pushes a forgotten fry around his empty plate. “Let me say hi to the girls. That’s good right?”

“Reckon it is.” And because he knows that’s what the other man wants to hear, “Think you should keep trying, she’ll be more receptive now.”

“You think?” Marty perks up.

“Well, last week you were her piece of shit husband. Now you’re her piece of shit husband who’s also a state hero.” Rust shrugs.

Marty huffs out a laugh. “Shit. I fucking hope you’re right, man.”

 

When it’s time to leave for the evening Marty grabs his jacket and leans over Rust’s desk. “Hey, I’m gonna, y’know, check on Maggie and the girls.” He glances around the emptying bullpen. “Imma do that so, don’t know how long I’ll be. With any luck―” the sentence ends in a frown as Marty straightens and claps his partner’s shoulder on his way out.

“Good luck,” Rust calls after him. It surprises him a bit, that he actually means it.

The truck’s been parked outside the station since they got back from Ledoux’s compound, the bed gathering dust and fallen leaves, the dry mud from Beaumont’s backroads. Rust pulls out of the parking lot and heads home. He stops at a drugstore and buys two bottles of Robitussin, the bright red on the box making his spit thick with the anticipated taste of torpor and molasses.

-

 

Marty doesn’t come back all weekend. Rust likes the idea of having his space to himself but spends both days too fucked up on cough syrup and booze to fully appreciate it. He doesn’t want to keep thinking about the case, about that night in Crash’s skin, the lightness of not giving a fuck about anything beyond the drugs in his bloodstream and the violence itching in the curl of his fists. Crash doesn’t care for new beginnings and being part of the body; all his hatreds are of equal measure, of equal shades of black. Rust’s already failed at starting over, at staying on the wagon. Rust keeps adding to his pile of secrets, though this one doesn’t weigh like North Shore and the time spent with the Crusaders, the things that happened in Alaska. Hell, it might be the first time he’s keeping a secret out of nothing but too-quick loyalty.

He’s already sitting at his desk on Monday morning when Marty walks in with two Styrofoam containers. He looks like he’s coming back from one of his benders and the other guys snigger and murmur as he crosses the bullpen. Rust thought about calling him, on the more lucid moments of the weekend; he’s never phoned the Hart household but he’d memorized the number the moment Marty scrawled it on a post-it and slapped it on the front of his ledger, the morning of their ruined dinner.

“You alright there, Marty?” Rust asks as the other man stops to put one of the containers down on the corner of Rust’s desk.

Marty drops down on his chair and sighs at him. His eyes are red-rimmed. “I’m fine, Rust. Eat.”

He doesn’t say how things went with Maggie and Rust doesn’t pry.

 

The week starts slow. All the full reports start trickling in: ballistics, forensics and toxicology. The lab’s matched the LSD on Dora Lange to the one found at the compound and that’s at least enough confirmation that they got the right guy. Marty asked Quesada to help around so they’re assisting Lutz and Denma with a bar brawl gone wrong, they’ve got one dead body and too many suspects. It’s mostly tracking KAs down and looking up addresses but both of them are thankful for the distraction.

Tuesday morning Commander Speece stalks across the bullpen and into Quesada’s office. Cathleen brings the men coffee ten minutes later, and throws Marty a wide-eyed look on the way back to her desk.

After lunch, she comes and perches lightly on Marty’s desk, gives him a small smile.

“Now, baby, you didn’t hear this from me―” she double-checks that the Major’s away from his office and leans in. “But there might be something good comin’ your way. Both your ways, maybe.” She tries to include Rust in the conversation though it’s clear from her tone that whatever she heard only includes Marty.

“What on earth are you talkin’ about, darling?” Marty leans back on his chair, his charming face on.

“I ain’t sure, some sort of reward.” Cathleen bites her lower lip as her smile grows bigger. “Maybe even a promotion.” She winks at him and saunters back to her desk.

Marty’s left with an expression that’s half hope and half remorse, both emotions battling in the lines on his forehead. He looks across their desks at Rust and all traces of hope crumble into a weary sigh.

Rust sees a couple of deputies looking their way and sure enough, next morning the whole bullpen knows about it.

-

 

Marty doesn’t wait for the Major to tell him the news officially. He corners Quesada in the records room and asks him outright. Rust knows about this because he’s going through a box of files on one of the back rows when his partner drags their superior into the room with a shuffle of feet and the click of the door as it closes shut.

“Boss,” Marty’s voice trembles on the vowel, he’s probably more than aware that what he’s doing can land him a warning for insubordination. What’s the fucking point of risking the Major’s wrath over something he’s gonna know for sure in a couple of days? “Wanted to ask if it’s true, about the commendation?”

“Who the fuck told you that?” Quesada asks, immediately defensive.

Rust can’t see him properly from the back of the room but he can practically feel Marty offering a casual shrug. “Heard it through the grapevine. Guys keep saying it.”

Quesada huffs. “And?”

“What about Rust?”

Rust’s breath hitches in his throat. He hunches down to catch sight of the men from between the shelves, only manages to see part of the Major’s shirt behind Marty’s wide shoulders.

“What?” Quesada sounds as stunned as Rust feels.

“He ain’t gonna get anything out of this?” Marty asks. “If I’m getting promoted―”

“Cohle’s sure as hell not getting a promotion, he only got here five months ago.”

“I know, boss, but we worked the case together, we were both there when that shit went down, how come he’s not getting a commendation? Now, I know the guy’s hard to like but we only got to Ledoux because of him. We both got shot at―”

“Hart―” Quesada raises a hand to stop him talking.

“Listen,” Marty insists. “He took―he carried the dead boy out of that place. He shouldn’t have done that, he―”

For a moment he thinks Marty’s gonna give him away, take the only sacred thing in Rust’s life and use it to haggle over a pat on the back and a useless piece of paper. Sophia’s name burns in the pit of his stomach and Rust has to shut Marty up _right now_. He feels frozen in place, bolted to the fucking floor but he’s gonna cross the room and punch the words out of his mouth if he has to, keep them inside his throat with his bare hands, partnership be damned. Fuck this man who treats Rust’s pain as if it was a bargaining chip. Fuck this job, this office full of assholes. If he’s completely honest with himself five months is way longer than he’d expected to last out here ―not as long as he’d _hoped_ but hope and reality ain’t the same thing. He’s set it as his last resort, the ultimate sign of failure, but he can always go back to Alaska, to the sea and the boats and the endless cold.

But before Rust can move a single hair Marty huffs out a sigh and murmurs, “he spared me that.”

“Look, I’m not the one who’s deciding this. I’ll put a word in.” Quesada sounds less annoyed now and that shakes Rust too; he wonders if the man does know something beyond the _Divorced. No next of kin_ printed on his file, or if it’s just that he too has felt the burden of a dead child in his arms.

“Thanks, sir. That’s all I’m asking.” Marty’s downright groveling now.

The Major waves him off with a scoff. “Next time you wanna tell me something you step into my goddamned office. For fuck’s sake.”

“Yes, sir. Thanks.” The door closes on Marty’s words. “ _Goddammit.”_

Rust remains still, the cardboard of the box clutched in a white-knuckled grip. He peers between the shelves as his partner rubs hard at his eyes and leaves the room.

He puts the files back in their place but loiters around the photocopier for nearly ten minutes, until he’s pretty sure Marty won’t be on the other side of the door when he opens it. He then walks out into the hallway, down the stairs and out the front door. Rust smokes four cigarettes, one after the other, hiding by the side of the building; his fingers keep trembling right before the filter touches his lips.

When he comes back to his desk Marty’s squinting at the typewriter. “Where the fuck have you been?” he asks without looking up.

“Out front having a smoke.”

Marty snorts and finally glances at him. “Since when do you bother going out to light up?”

Rust gives him a flat stare. “Since we’re chained to this fucking room all day. What? Anything good came up?”

“Nah.” Marty goes back to typing. Rust looks for a tell that gives him away but there isn’t one.

 

Quesada opens his door somewhere before seven, shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows and tie hanging loose bellow his open collar.

“Hart and Cohle, get in here,” he barks before going back to his desk.

Marty and Rust exchange a look, knowing exactly what the Major’s gonna tell them, can see Commander Speece is in there too, sitting stiffly on the couch. They drag their feet into the office and sag down into the chairs across the other man.

“Boss.”

“Well it ain’t exactly a secret―” Quesada shoots Marty a pointed look. “So let’s make it official. The department wants to reward you for your excellent work on the Lange case.” He offers them a brief, administrative smile. “Hart, you’re getting promoted to Detective Sergeant. Cohle, you’re getting a commendation for bravery. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir.” Marty’s smiling, the tip of his ears going red. “We’re grateful.”

Rust feels everyone’s eyes on him so he nods along. “Thanks.”

“The superintendent’s making the formal announcement next Monday. There’s gonna be a ceremony, be in the press room at nine o’clock.” Quesada opens a folder on his desk, clearly dismissing them.

“Understood, sir. Thank you.” Marty stands up and Rust moves with him.

Speece gets to his feet as well, blocks their exit with a glare. “Don’t be late. And ceremony means dress uniform.”

Rust scoffs before he can think better of it. He hears Quesada sigh behind him.

Commander Speece takes a step closer. “Got a problem with that, Cohle?”

“No problem, sir.” Marty’s standing between them, nudging Rust back with his shoulder. “We’ll be there.”

Speece ignores him, glowering eyes steady on Rust’s.

He clenches his jaw, feels the vile burning yellow in the pit of his stomach. “No problem, sir.”

Marty grabs his arm and pulls him to the door, almost fucking curtseys at Quesada. “Thanks again, Major.” He nods tightly at Speece. “Commander.”

 

“I don’t even have a fucking uniform,” Rust says once they’re tucked away in the car, idling at an intersection on the way back to the house. He’s still seething from the confrontation with Speece, Marty nudging him and speaking for him like Rust’s a kid or a fucking animal, leaning to kiss their asses like the department’s giving them a fucking handout. The fact that the rational part of his brain tells him his anger is out of proportion just adds to the acrid taste of hot tin flooding his mouth.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Marty grinning. “Bullshit, it’s in the upstairs closet.”

“I don’t want a fucking commendation.”

Marty doesn’t react. “Tough tits, you’re getting one.”

It sparks against his rage like a fucking flint, knowing that Marty’s playing dumb, acting like he didn’t buy this so-called honor with his stammering wrapped tissue-soft around Rust’s grief.

“This is a fucking circus.” He spits. “What’s the fucking point of having a ceremony? Shit’s goddamned farcical, man. All they want is a photo for page nine, two assholes in their good-cops uniform smiling at the camera while all the higher-ups jerk each other’s dicks congratulating themselves on our work.”

“We got those assholes and it reflects well on the department. What’s so wrong with that? You want to skip the politics, become a fucking vigilante.” Marty has some goddamned gall to say that. “I know validation means jack shit to you but a commendation for bravery ain’t gonna look too shabby on your file.”

Rust scoffs. “Jesus Christ, of course. Of fucking course. You wanna be boss someday, Marty? You wanna sit in the big office and reign over all the other assholes? Goddammit. _Goddammit_. You _wanted_ this. Promotion, golden start spit-glued to your forehead, climbing the fucking ladder. That your fucking life-goal, partner?”

Marty’s eyes fall on his, hard and wet and drained of blue. “Yes, Rust, this is exactly what I wanted.” His knuckles have turned white around the wheel, voice tight with something that’s not quite anger.

That knocks Rust right to the ground. He remembers he’s the only one doing this job waiting for a bullet to finally hit him the right way. He swallows the vile left behind by his words. “Marty―”

The other man just shakes his head.

When they get to Rust’s place Marty doesn’t pull into the driveway, he stops in front of the house but doesn’t kill the engine.

“Think I’m gonna drive around a bit,” he says without glancing away from the slice of tarmac illuminated by the headlights.

Rust wraps his fingers around the door handle but doesn’t open it. “I didn’t―”

“Please get the fuck out of my car, Rust.”

“Alright.” He wants to throw a punch, a dozen, not at Marty, just hit something to quell his shame. He gets out of the car without another word. Marty’s already going around the corner before he even makes it to the door.

Rust doesn’t get in the truck to follow him. He sits in the dark, curled up on his mattress, thinking maybe this partnership ain’t gonna last much longer after all. Like every single relationship in his life, it’s gonna sink under the weight of a terrible truth, of something unspeakable. Under the weight of Rust being who he is.

 

He’s given up on Marty coming back for the night when the front door opens with a low creak. Just hearing that sound and the following rattle of keys Rust can tell Marty’s drunk. He doesn’t move, just remains quiet in dark-indigo stillness, eyes fixed on the ceiling as Marty climbs up the stairs, feet dragging on every step.

He blinks away a line of wetness that dissolves against his hair. Maybe it’d be for the best, if they split, it ain’t like they have the best record when it comes to bringing the best out of each other.

-

 

When Marty comes down the next morning Rust is already showered and dressed. He’s sitting at the kitchen counter, hunched over his open ledger, very obviously waiting for him to get up.

He flips the book closed and skirts around an apology that he knows Marty will reject.

“Stop it with the fucking kicked dog face.” Marty takes one look at him and goes straight for the coffee machine. “I’m already used to you being a son of a bitch.”

“Well, I’m in good company,” Rust shoots back and it’s the right thing to say because the other man raises a middle finger and throws him a mock glare but the high tension of the previous night evaporates like steam.

“Let’s just get it over with, okay?” Marty pours himself a cup and leans back against the formica, lets out a sigh that paints him tired and pale under the soft morning light.

“Sure thing.” Rust nods, though he still feels that flare of resistance against the whole concept of dressing up and being paraded around like they’re a couple of show dogs.

Marty reaches for the open flask of Jameson sitting next to Rust’s coffee and pours some into his own mug. He eyes the collection of empty bottles and crushed beer cans gathering around the sink. “We have to stop with this shit, Rust. The booze and…whatever the fuck you’ve been doing,” he says with a pointed look.

Rust gives nothing away but he wonders if Marty clocked him for a junkie from the beginning, if he noticed the first time he showed up slow and dull-eyed with cough syrup and pills.

“I need to get my shit together if I’m gonna win Maggie back.” Marty clears his throat, eyes jumping between Rust’s face and the bottle of Jameson. “You said you’d had problems with―I don’t know if we can go fully dry but we gotta get at least close to the vicinity of the fucking wagon, alright?”

Rust raises his cup in vague agreement. He knows he’ll never be completely sober, has known it since he saw the corpse of Dora Lange on the one day he could only think about Sophia. Still, he doesn’t really want to repeat the way he’d slumped against the Harts’ patio door, babbling about being unable to come up with a good reason not to drink while his partner plied him with coffee and unexpected compassion.

“After what they made you―you’ve got any, uhm, cravings or something?” Marty leans his forearms on the counter, cuts the distance between them. “Listen, I know how UC works and I just need to know if you’re at risk of a fucking relapse or some shit.”

It’s too late to worry about a drug relapse but Rust understands what the other man’s asking. UCs have tricks, like the ink and cayenne and pretending you’re snorting a line without actually inhaling, but no one gets away with it all the time. Rust had used them, at the very beginning when he wasn’t full in and Claire was still around, but after she left he just didn’t give a fuck about being present in his own life. He thinks of the bottle of Quaaludes in his sock drawer and that first rush of electricity as the cocaine entered his bloodstream and made him feel like he was flesh and blood again. “Nah, Marty. I ain’t going back to that shit, sweated it out that night and that’s it.” There are degrees to staying clean.

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the whiskey breakfasts are over then.” Marty straightens and downs the rest of his cup. “Give me five minutes and we’ll stop at the drive-thru.”

-

 

The rest of the week slips through their fingers in a stream of typewriting and cigarette butts. Now that they’re allowed to comment out loud, the other detectives spear them with a new round of congratulations, this time barely bothering to hide their spite. They won’t come near him so Rust ignores them, keeps his eyes on his work and his ears tuned to one voice only. Marty doesn’t get away so easily; they crowd him and bait him with pats on the back and the hook-like pull of camaraderie. They make him promise a round of beers and call him _Detective Sergeant_ like it’s a punchline, like they’re a bunch of schoolyard bullies. Rust conforms himself with clenching his jaw and trying to blink away the putrid ochre color that tints his vision every time one of them speaks to his partner. In a way he admires that Marty can fend off their hostility with a smile and the sharper edge of his good ol’ boy charm. Rust would have thrown at least a couple of punches by now.

Cathleen’s the only one who compliments them with actual sincerity. She wraps Marty in a tight hug and squeezes Rust’s hand with a wide smile.

“I told you, babies. Something good was on the way, you both deserve it.”

Rust and Marty put their humble-heroes masks back on, they help Favre book a Lake Charles man who went at his brother-in-law with a shotgun, and keep slogging through their mountains of paperwork.

 

Saturday morning Marty gets up early and leaves to see the girls. Rust stays in bed, wrapped in a thin cocoon of bedsheets, lulled between the hum of the AC and the warm smell of Marty’s coffee. He dozes on and off all morning, only drags himself up when the need to piss becomes too much.

He reads, he drinks the rest of the coffee, takes out the trash ―bottles and Lone Star cans. There’s leftover take-out in the fridge, Rust nukes it in the microwave and eats while jotting down notes about the stages of decomposition.

The phone rings in the late evening. Rust knows who it is the moment the shrill sound breaks the smoke-filled silence.

“Cohle.” He grabs the phone and goes back to his lawn chair, cord trailing behind him.

“Hey.” Maggie’s voice is high and a bit breathless, like she’s surprised he actually picked up.

“He’s not in,” Rust says perhaps too harshly, their last conversation still stings sharp in the hollow of his throat.

“I know. He just left here.” Her words come soft but not apologetic and it both irritates and relieves Rust that she doesn’t mention what she said to him. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“What can I do for you, Maggie?” He digs a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket and lights it, can almost sense the flicker of the zippo traveling along miles of cord to Maggie’s ear.

“I just need to know about what happened. Marty said―God, he never talks about any of it.” He hears her sigh. “He just said it was bad, that you both got shot at. He shot someone.”

Rust did wonder if Marty’d told her the same tale he keeps spinning at everyone who asks, the scene out of an action flick where they almost died under a hail of bullets; or if he’d decided she’d be more receptive to a measure of the truth. Of course it’s neither.

“He got us out of there, Maggie, found the kids.” He doesn’t know what else she expects him to say. His bond to Marty has been almost and imposition, something inescapable, like gravity. Rust can sense that Maggie is, will be an important person in his life, they understand each other, but when it comes to Marty they’ve only ever dealt in lies, things he forces himself to say and she forces herself to believe. That too is an understanding. Rust thinks this time’s no different. “If you’ve read the news, that’s exactly what happened. He did good.”

There’s a long silence at the other end of the line while Maggie decides if she should ask for more details. “He says he’s getting a promotion, there’s gonna be a ceremony. Wants me to be there, bring the girls.”

“Yeah.”

“That wouldn’t mean I’m taking him back,” she says in a single breath. “I―”

“You should go. Give him that at least.” Rust hangs up. Like with all the previous times she’s called he doesn’t mention it to Marty.

-

 

Monday morning Rust wakes up to find Marty next to him, reading a book. He doesn’t recall much of the previous night beyond dry-swallowing a couple of Quaaludes but he knows Marty was upstairs.

He blinks the slumber away and squints at the other man. He’s about to ask if Marty actually brought a book with him when he moved in but then he sees the tight handwriting on the margins of a page. “You beating off to my murder manuals?”

“You wish.” Marty clears his throat. “Just somethin’ I picked up the other night.” He tilts the book so Rust can see the cover. _Twilight of the Idols._ Well, that’s certainly unexpected.

Rust feels around the mattress for his pack of cigarettes, lights one. “And?”

“‘A man recovers best from his exceptional nature ―his intellectuality― by giving his animal instincts a chance.’ No wonder you like this shit, it actually explains a lot about you, man.”

_That’s the pot calling the kettle back,_ Rust doesn’t say. When Marty plucks the cigarette from his fingers he doesn’t bother lighting another, just snatches it back when the other man blows a cloud of smoke against the dog-eared pages.

“You get any sleep?”

“Some.” Marty lies and puts the book aside. “You ready for your close-up?”

Rust looks around at the strips of early-morning light whitening the room. It looks like any other day, like every day. “What time is it?”

Marty squints at his wristwatch. “Half-past seven.”

Rust sits up. “Alright then.”

 

They drink coffee and pass back and forth another cigarette, both slumped against the sink. Rust takes a long shower; Marty took both uniforms to the drycleaners and the crisp smell of the chemicals clings to Rust’s skin and settles at the front of his brain. He dresses in blue and gold trimmings and tries not to look down at himself. It’s not the same uniform he wore in Texas but it still reminds him of his previous life, before loss ―long before Sophia― back when he was a different man and Claire was just the promise of a life of his own.

He’s in the bathroom going through his routine of eye drops and pain pills when Marty’s feet come drumming down the stairs. Rust blinks at his own reflection and runs the comb through his hair one last time.

“This is bullshit,” he makes sure to say as he steps into the main room, he won’t go along with this thing without complaining at least once more.

“Oh, hell. Look at this beauty.” Marty crosses the space between them and grabs Rust’s shoulders, straightens his tie. “Holy shit, you look like a rookie.” He huffs out a laugh, the gap in his teeth makes Rust’s palms tingle.

“I look like a moron, and so do you.”

It isn’t true, Marty looks like a fucking PR dream, handsome and charming, broad-shouldered and sharp in the starched blue. Skilled cop and southern gentleman all in one.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Marty says but his voice tumbles out hollow and jagged. “We’re heroes,”

“You alright, Marty?” The other man nods but Rust waits him out, doesn’t let his eyes waver. Since Quesada told them about the ceremony Marty’s been walking around with something frantic in the pits of his eyes; last night he spent over an hour polishing their shoes to a high shine, Friday evening Rust caught him standing at the edge of the Press Room like he’d never been there before ―like it isn’t part of the foyer they cross every day to climb the stairs to the bullpen―, eyes darting about, finding the exits. Right now Rust looks at him and he hears a low buzzing coming off him like white noise.

“I keep thinking that they know,” Marty says at last, face pinched, his eyes blinking too fast. “They know and they’re just letting us spin our tale, giving―me, giving me enough rope to hang myself.” His shoulders sag, he rubs hard at his jaw and lets out a trembling sigh. “This is on me, Rust, maybe I should just tell―”

Rust shakes his head. “No.”

“ _Yes_. You’re right, this is a fucking circus. I shouldn’t be getting a fucking promotion out of this. I killed a man, Rust. _Goddammit_. What fucking difference did it make? I’m a―”

“Marty―” Rust grasps his shoulders hard, his fingers digging into the rough fabric of the uniform, the skin beneath it. They can’t tell the truth, he knows what’d happen then. Martin Hart is a piece of shit in a lot of respects but Rust ain’t gonna let him throw his life away over Reggie fucking Ledoux. Marty has a wife, two little girls that depend on him, look up to him; he’s competent and he’s almost fucking ethical when it comes to the job. If Rust can be selfish, Marty’s the only one in the whole department who could stand being his partner; that night he looked Crash in the eye and, instead of recoiling, just asked if he was going to be alright. Rust owes him this much.

“You don’t know, Rust.” Marty tries to push him away. “I didn’t even hesitate, it was―”

“Shut the fuck up and listen to me.” He stops at the edge of what he needs to say but forces himself to go ahead. “I know, Marty. I fucking know because I did the same thing.” He tells him then, stumbling over his own words but looking him in the eye; he tells Marty about the man he killed, Thomas White, twenty three with a crack habit and a dead baby rotting in a purple blanket.

“That’s why they kept you in for so long.” He can tell the second the other man connects the seemingly unrelated dots. Crash. Sophia. Rust doesn’t say a word; it always catches him wrong-footed, the moments he’s reminded Marty’s more than he lets on. “Jesus fucking Christ, Rust.”

Marty grabs his arm and shakes him softly like it can change what happened, and Rust _knows_ Marty wouldn’t have let the feds and the department bury him in Crash’s skin. The certainty falls leaden and hot in the back of his throat but Rust can’t afford to think about that right now, can’t stop to wonder why in less than five months of knowing each other he’s already told this man most of his secrets.

“What’s done is done, man. Told you, we keep other bad men from the door. If we hadn’t gone in like that they’d still be hurting kids and women. If you hadn’t put that fucker down he’d be sitting in Angola, bragging about what he did, getting cheered on by the rest of that fucking scum. We did the right thing, Martin. Who gives a fuck if it ain’t lawful?”

“What if they know?” The last tendril of fear creases Marty’s brow.

Rust reaches up and folds his fingers on the back of Marty’s neck, leans in until they’re only inches apart. “Nobody knows, partner. Just you and me, and we’re gonna take this to the fucking grave, alright?”

Marty hesitates but nods against his hands. “Just you and me. Just today and it’s over.”

“That’s right.” Rust steps away, claps the other man’s shoulder. “Let’s get going.”

They clip their badges to their belts and straighten the golden trimmings of the uniforms. Ledger and keys, and they’re out the door; the morning is already warm.


End file.
